Once again, Apple has launched a minor number update to its professional video-editing software, Final Cut Pro X, with some major feature adds.

The non-linear editing program was initially launched to protests by the pro-editing community, but Version 10.0.3 addresses nearly all of the remaining criticisms of the post-production tool, adding multicam support, external broadcast monitoring (still a beta feature), and detailed chroma-key controls. And perhaps the biggest criticism—the lack of an upgrade path for projects built into previous Final Cut versions—has now been addressed by a third-party plugin called 7toX, from Intelligent Assistance.

The free program update and the 7toX transfer plugin ($9.99) will be available on the Mac App Store starting today.

Other new features include a more-detailed XML 1.1 import/export format with support for effect parameters and audio keyframes, manual media relinking, and the ability to import and edit layered Photoshop graphics.

"When we introduced Final Cut Pro X last June, we talked about it being a foundation for Apple's professional post-production roadmap for the next ten years," said Apple senior director of applications marketing, Richard Townhill, in a call with PCMag. "We rewrote the application with a 64-bit engine and introduced a couple of really innovative new features, the magnetic timeline being one and content auto-analysis being another. We promised at that time that we would release new features faster, at a pace that you haven't seen previously. We also improved on the way they'd been implemented in the past."

Key to the app's development, according to Townhill, was the new plug-in API. "We wanted to make sure that we were building APIs for Final Cut Pro X that were richer and more powerful than what we had in previous releases. We've actually got a faster growing ecosystem than we've ever had before."

Aside from 7toX, Townhill spotlighted two of the most popular plugins in use: Red Giant's Magic Bullet and GenArts' Sapphire Edge. "If you want to take your production and make it look like the Matrix or Band of Brothers, those tools allow you to do exactly that. And you can use them in ways that you've never been able to used plugins inside of Final Cut before."

The new advanced Chroma keying builds on the one-click keying of the original release. Until today's update, editors would have to switch out to a separate app like Motion to fine tune green screen work. "We wanted to incorporate everything you need to make a perfect key inside Final Cut itself," said Townhill, who also noted that users had made clear their desire for this capability. "We now have industry-leading chroma-keying built into the NLE."

The new multicam capability lets editors bring in up to 64 different camera angles in any format from any camera, according to Townhill. They can have different frame rates, codes, and resolutions. A new angle editor lets you adjust the order and rename the multicam angles, and you can apply effects to specific angles. But the feature also solves one of the biggest problems editors have with multicam—syncing. "If you don't have perfectly matched timecode, Final Cut can pick up the date and time stamp from the devices or it can automatically synchronize using audio waveforms," said Townhill. "This means syncing clips, even if the cameras don't have timecodes, is a breeze."

Final Cut Pro X's new support for broadcast monitors is still classified as a beta feature, since it depends on the hardware makers as well as Apple. If you have an existing Mac Pro with a Black Magic or AJA card connected to a broadcast monitor, FCPX is ready to use those interfaces as soon as the hardware vendors make drivers available. Townhill said that those drivers are "soon to be arriving." Those two hardware makers along with Matrox will be releasing Thuderbolt devices, which means you'll be able to output to broadcast monitors in the field using a MacBook Pro as well as an iMac or Mac Pro.

"This release checks of few of the last enormous boxes that let us as a company genuinely do the deep dive and try it on a massive project," Evan Schechtman, CTO of New York-based post-production studio Radical Media. Schechtman made no bones about having reservations when Final Cut Pro X was initially launched: "It gave us pause and concern." But he was still impressed from the get-go with the app's philosophy, "Even from the first day, the core editing, story-telling engine, the media management, and the timeline, we've actually been in love with." And with its performance: "It's probably the best performance of any NLE on the same hardware; it's night and day compared with Final Cut Pro 7."

A free trial download of Final Cut Pro X is available from apple.com/finalcutpro, but if you decide to buy, you can get the software from the Mac App Store, which lets you install on multiple machines and keeps the software updated automatically. Also feel free to read PCMag's full review of Apple Final Cut Pro X, which will be updated shortly to reflect the new changes in version 10.0.3.

Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for software and Web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine’s coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of Web Services (pretty much the progenitor of Web 2.0) for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine’s Solutions section, which in those days covered programming techniques as well as tips on using popular office software. Most recently he covered Web...
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